Barack Obama's top five flip-flops on Syria – or why so many find it hard to trust him on war

It says a lot about Barack Obama that some commentators think his decision to seek Congress' opinion on war with Syria is a great big con. Rand Paul suggests that he will ignore the legislature if it votes no (so this is just a PR thing). Allen West says that the Prez is looking for someone to share the blame with if things go horribly wrong. And Neil Cavuto floated the possibility that he wants the vote to fail so that he can justify inaction. The bottom line: a lot of people struggle to trust this President, and for good reason. He's changed his mind so often on foreign policy that he can't really be said to have a policy at all – just a sequence of short-term political needs articulated surprisingly badly. Here are the top five flip-flops related to Syria:

1. Obama set a red line and then claimed that he didn't. A major reason why the West is considering action is because over a year ago Obama laid down a red line for war – if Assad uses chemical weapons then the US will take action. Yesterday, he said, " I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line." No, sir, you most certainly did. True, almost the entire world has outlawed chemical weapons and regards them as a war crime. But that's a trigger for war crimes prosecution, not war itself.

2. Obama used to think that Assad was a force for peace in the world – or, at least, he was happy to deal with him. For example, in 2009, John Kerry visited Syria and said, "President Barack Obama's administration considers Syria a key player in Washington's efforts to revive the stalled Middle East peace process.” He added, "Syria is an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region.” By the way, Syria was still listed as a state sponsor of terrorism when Kerry delivered that eccentric verdict.

4. Candidate Obama used to care about what Congress thought.He told a reporter in 2007, "the president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." Maybe Obama's changed his mind since then, but the law has stayed the same: candidate Obama was right and President Obama is wrong.

5.Obama used to say that America was not exceptional, which would imply that it shouldn't be so quick to go it alone.In 2009, he told the G20: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism . . [whatever America has] to offer the world does not lessen my interest in recognizing the value and wonderful qualities of other countries, or recognizing that we’re not always going to be right, or that other people may have good ideas, or that in order for us to work collectively, all parties have to compromise and that includes us."

America might not be exceptional, but Obama surely believes that he is. His vision of his leadership is free from the constraints of history or the law – making him the imperial president of a country that he perhaps suspects doesn't quite deserve him. This war may well happen regardless of what the American people think.